The present invention relates to a new and useful method and apparatus for more efficiently fabricating cleaning pads.
A representative sample of previously known cleaning pads is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,287,633, issued Sept. 8, 1981 to Gropper entitled Cleaning Pad.
A series of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,017,949; 4,010,139; and 4,052,238 to Botvin teach methods and an apparatus for continuously knitting plastic or metal filaments into elongated ropes around which are knitted inside out another rope. The completed ropes are divided into individual pads and either heat sealed or stitched closed. The three Botvin references teach the application of vinyl thermoplastic tape 40 which may be reinforced with multiple rows of stitching with between 1/2 and 3/4 inch separation.
It has also been known to produce individual cleaning or scouring pads utilizing separate manual steps of closing one end of a short segment of tubular meshed network, reversing this short segment, inserting a filler therein and then closing the open end.